Zoey swung her legs over the ledge, her plushie sitting in her lap after finally being mended. "Thanks for letting me hang around here all the time, by the way. It's nice being able to travel back to someplace where I can actually be myself, y'know?"

"Don't sweat it. I'll be here for a long, long time," Gadget's face peeked out from above the overhang. A flicker ran across her face. "Maybe even forever, for all I know."

She slipped back from the edge, metallic thumps ringing out as she climbed down from her perch.

"You ever wonder why we're the only ones here? Like--" Gadget stepped out from the inside of her little scrap hut, dusting off her hands. "If I'm here because I'm... well, dead, and you're here because of a similar freak accident, then how come there aren't more of us constantly popping up in here?"

Zoey glanced down at her little shard of sky, inspecting the ethereal blade in her hands. "Sometimes. Though, where I'm living now I'm usually all bogged down having to think about stuff like spellcasting and whatever." She set it aside. "Is something up? You usually don't ask stuff like that."

"Just wondering, I guess. Though..." Gadget sat down beside her counterpart, tucking her legs in her arms. "It does get lonely in here. I know it probably wasn't the case for you, but I was so happy when you dropped into here at first. Like, sure, I can pop into all those different worlds and stuff if I want to, but I think you already know well what it's like for me when I do."

Zoey nodded along. "Like a ghost."

"I am a ghost," Gadget flattened her lips. "In every sense of the word. I float around, nobody sees or hears me, I can go through walls if I want to..." She buried her face in her arms. "You're the only one I can talk to. Even if you're just a version of me that made it out alive."

"I..." Zoey reached out a hand.

Gadget brushed it off. "No, i-it's alright. It's not like there's much I can do about it. Instantly incinerated the moment I crossed the boundary between the reality I was stuck in and here, remember? In here is the one place where I still have a body at all." Her form flickered again. "Mostly, at least."

Zoey fidgeted with her plushie's legs.

"If this place really is a space between worlds--" Gadget's voice rose from her curled form. "--then shouldn't there be other versions of us also stuck in here?" She lifted her head a little, her unkempt hair still masking her face. "I know this isn't something I should be saying, but there should be more dead Zoeys and Gadgets out there somewhere, right? It's that whole thing about 'anything being possible in an infinite universe'. And here, we have an infinite number of universes."

She flickered between forms again. "The same goes for you, too."

"Hm?" Zoey's attention shot from the toy in her lap back to... well, herself.

"Think about it. You're like me, minus the whole 'got exploded in less than a second' part. You literally fell into here because the universe you were living in at the time started tearing apart at the seams. Aren't there other Zoeys that should've also fallen into here? That also forced their way into another Zoey's universe in search of home?"

Gadget picked up the shard sitting beside Zoey. "That somehow broke a chunk off of the very boundry of existence itself? Do you know how long it was between when I entered this place and when I finally met you? No versions of us--none of them that even passed through here in the first place. I saw--" her voice cracked as she continued. "I saw the version of me that survived shoot past in a rocket, a long time ago. That was the only other me that I saw for ages since then. And when I realized that I could just, like... pick out one of the little lights floating around us and stretch it open to just walk in, I was so excited to finally be somewhere again!"

Her grip tightened around the blade. "But then, when I did step out into a world, nobody ever noticed me. Nobody could touch me, or hear me."

She lowered her head again, letting the sky shard clatter back down beside her. "Sometimes, I wonder if the reason why there's only the two of us is because this place in and of itself is yet another plane of existence just like all the others. That maybe this is a place that was somehow purpose-made for us. A made-up limbo place that exists just so that we can sit here and talk to each other. Think about it, Zoey. How far back can you remember in your life?"

"I..." Zoey brought a hand to her chin. There was of course the whole thing about the portal and falling through the cracks and stuff, and before that, being babysat by Lisa even though she was very definitely a big girl who could look after herself, but it wasn't a very big deal anyway 'cause Lisa let her help with her cool robot stuff. Before that...

"Can't think of anything past when you met Lisa, can you?" Gadget leaned back, propping herself up on one arm. "That's 'cause you didn't exist yet before that."

"What."

"It's the same for me. I can only remember as far back as when I got a tablet that I used to use as a sort of digital diary. I was eleven at the time, but I only know that 'cause I was told so. Before that? Nothing."

"You were eleven back then?" Zoey raised a brow. "How long has it been since then?"

Gadget shrugged. "It's hard to keep track of time in a timeless place. Going by watching how time passes in other planes of existence around here, I'd say maybe seven? Eight years?" She blinked. "Holy crap I'm an adult now, aren't I? Zoey, how old are you?"

"...Ten?"

Gadget ran her hands through her hair, staring wide-eyed at the milky black plane beneath them. "Man. I..." she flickered again, stepping back into the hut. "Gimme a moment. I need to think about this some more."

Zoey turned her attention back to the plushie in her lap. She got it during her birthday party... one of them, three years ago. That was when she had the stuffing put into it... and... and then before that...

That was it.

That was it.

Two years ago?

Nothing. Same with last year's. It was as if that one singular party existed on its own, separate from everything else.

She wracked her mind. There had to be more, right? She wasn't like Gadget, who'd been stuck in this place for a loooooooong time. Maybe Gadget was just forgetting her old life after spending so long here! But then...

Think, Zoey repeated mentally. There had to be something else she remembered. Anything. Her mom... yes, she could remember her. The way she spoke, how she stood at the edge of that pit when... she shook her head. She needed to think further back. When... when her mom dropped her off at school?

Her brows wrinkled. Even for something that should've happened almost every single day for years, she was drawing a blank. What if it was the void itself that was making them forget? Maybe if she just... she shifted her gaze to the countless dots of light dotting the space surrounding them. Gadget held onto the one with her mom in it for safekeeping, so maybe if she went back there, she would remember again!

Zoey hopped back to her feet and ran into the hut. "Gadgetttt! Where's the portal thingy that I used to find my mom?"

Her counterpart wasn't there.

"Gadget?" she repeated, quieter this time as she crept beneath the dingy hut built from what amounted to singed scrap metal. "You in here?"

A momentary flicker caught her eye.

"What are you doing?" Zoey squat down beside the trembling ball that was Gadget. She traced her other self's gaze to a ball of light sitting across from them.

"I thought I was still eleven this entire time," Gadget's voice came in uneven spurts. "A while back, I found a very strange version of us."

She scooted aside for Zoey to get a better view.

Sure enough, there was yet another incarnation of herself, one from a different time and place.

"Next, she'll eat a baked potato she carved into the shape of a hot dog."

"Wh--" Zoey turned to Gadget. "Hu--"

"Shh, just watch."

Sure enough, the version of herself they were watching did... well, precisely that. With a hefty serving of powdered sugar as a topping, too.

"I don't know how long this has been happening for," Gadget looked away from the view. "But it always ends with her and her friends rolling down a grassy hill for some reason. Then, it repeats. Over and over, forever. As if that's all the time she ever exists for."

Zoey leaned closer to the orb. "Have you ever tried... going in? Seeing what happens if you're around at the very end before it loops?"

"...No."

"I think I even recognize some people from there," Zoey scooted herself even closer than before. "Yeah. There's Sam... Brodie... Caleb looks pretty different from the one I know, but still--" she peered over her shoulder. "Is there a reason why you haven't taken a look from the inside?"

Gadget kept herself curled up, a blonde, unkempt tail hiding the muzzle she currently sported as she eyed the alternate reality. She looked just like the plushie she'd helped fix not too long ago.

"Scared, I guess," her tail drooped just enough to keep her voice from becoming muffled. "I'm already here forever, what would happen if when that reality comes to a close and loops back around, I get trapped in there instead? Here, at least, I don't have to worry about living in a perpetual loop."

Zoey looked between her counterpart and her... other counterpart; the one they were watching.

"I'll go in then."

Zoey wrapped her fingers around the proverbial 'edge' of the floaty ball, just as she had that first time she stumbled into this place.

She pulled the portal wide enough for herself to fit through. "Last call," she glanced over her shoulder. "I promise I'll be back."

Gadget remained curled up, face once again buried in her arms. She only gave a thumbs-up in response.

Zoey turned back to the portal. At the moment, it seemed to open into a cafeteria of sorts. Scratch that, her school's cafeteria.

Right. Parallel universe whatevers.

She ducked through the portal. Almost immediately, the smell of whatever was cooking for the main lunch line hit her like a wall. She paused, savoring the all-too-familiar smells. Even if the food wasn't necessarily good, she missed this place.

The end-of-period bell played over the intercom. Another point for familiarity.

"Well," a voice caught her attention from down one of the halls. "I don't really know what to do."

"Me neither," another responded.

It quickly grew difficult to pick out the conversation as students began to fill the halls. This part of her old life before all this craziness began was one she didn't miss. Actually, wait, the portal--

She frantically looked around. Thankfully, it seemed to have vanished after she'd exited. The last thing she needed was for more random kids like her to wander into that place. Though, why it closed like that she wasn't as sure. The previous ones she'd traveled through lingered on even after she'd traveled through them, though they did tend to kinda fade into translucency.

Still. They didn't disappear like that.

Zoey started walking toward the lunch lines. If she knew herself, then the main line with different items each day of the week would be the one she goes to.

"Oh hey, Zoey," one of her classmates walked past. "You're hangin' out with Sammy again today after school, aren't you?"

"Er--" she forced a grin as she waved them off. "Yeah! Like I always do!"

Seems like this version of her didn't have a Lisa to go back to. That was Lisa's brother's friend group that Sam was part of.

"Neato. I don't know how you got through history today. My teacher looked like he was gonna fall asleep."

Zoey scrambled for the name. "Mister... Daniels, right?"

"Yeah. I heard that the teacher for your team is so much more fun. Anyway, see ya!"

She waved as they wandered off. That was probably the most stressful moment she'd had in so long.

The next voice that drew her attention immediately shattered that notion.

"Lunch always seems to be the most boring time," her own voice rung out from somewhere within the throng of students flooding into the cafeteria.

"Yeah," Sam's voice agreed.

There she was. Through the crowd, Zoey momentarily locked eyes with herself. She looked a little different--hair styled differently and a little more curly, maybe a little shorter--but most definitely a version of her.

"Woah, two Zoeys?" a boy slid between her and her counterpart. "Sammy, did you know Zoey had a twin?"

"Actually, I--" Zoey held up her hands.

"I don't though?" Other Zoey stepped closer to her. She narrowed her eyes, stopping right in front of her. "Idunno, she does look reeeeaaally similar to me."

She scratched her head. "Anyway hi! I'm Zoey! Do you like potatoes?"

Zoey backed further away from her counterpart. From past experience, touching her was not a good idea. Somewhere out there was a much older Zoey who now had to explain to her parents how she aged like seven years while they were away. Actually--wasn't that version of her also obsessed with potatoes?

"C'mooooon, you shy?" Other Zoey tilted her head. "Ooh, I know. You like potatoes?"

"Not everyone is as crazy about potatoes as you are, Zoey," Sam walked around her. "Sorry about Zoey, she's a bit wild."

Zoey shrunk further back from his outstretched hand.

"No handshake, alright," Sam retracted his hand.

"What's happening?" Gadget's voice echoed in her ear. Zoey flinched from the intrusion.

"Wait, you can hear me? That was supposed to be a test. Nobody on the other side of these things have heard me before."

"Not a good time, Gadget," Zoey whispered back.

Sam raised a brow.

"Anyway, now that I know you can hear me, I'll say right now that none of this is supposed to happen. You should've hit the loop by no--"

"I'm bored," Other Zoey declared. "How about we go roll down the hill?"

"Zoey, get out. Now. That's the very last thing anyone says."

Sam turned away from Zoey to his version of her. "Zoey. We haven't even had lunch yet."

"You might not have," Other Zoey grinned, slowly pulling a...

Zoey scrunched her face as her counterpart pulled an entire baked potato from her backpack. Thankfully, it was still in its foil wrap.

Other Zoey's gaze flit between the concerned looks of her friends. "What? Don't worry, I've got a lunchbox in here, see?" She knocked on something hard inside her backpack. "I'm not dumb enough to give myself food poisoning, y'know. I already finished it too. See?" She began to unwrap what was very clearly a bundle of napkins stuffed into the foil.

"Oooookay," Zoey slunk away from her alternate-universe self and her friends. "Well, it was neat seeing y'all! I've uh--got a class to go to. Different lunch period and stuff. Don't wanna be late! See ya!"

She sprinted down the hall. Since her entry portal disappeared, she'd have to find somewhere out of the way to cut herself out. She slipped a hand into one of her pockets, feeling for...

Her steps slowed.

Oh.

Oh no.

"Gadget, you still there?" Zoey muttered under her breath, her eyes frantically scanning her surroundings. "Really need some help right about now..."

"Who're you talkin' to?" Other Zoey's voice sent a jolt through her body. "You look a lot like me. Where did you come from? I don't think I ever saw you here before."

"I... uh--" Zoey spun around to face her counterpart. She was standing so close right now. Worse yet, the place she was standing at the moment really didn't allow for any kind of easy escape.

"You lost or something?" Other Zoey grabbed her hand. Zoey winced, preparing herself to open her eyes and find herself facing yet another aged-up version of herself.

Other Zoey laughed at the action. "You know, I like you. You're weird. C'monnnnn, what's your next class?"

The first class she had after lunch in her own world came to mind. "Art two."

"Ooh, you're in my class then!" Other Zoey dragged her along down the hall. "Yup, right this way. You still haven't told me your name yet by the way."

Zoey stared at the still-young hand holding onto her own. Maybe this happened to be a universe where there was no noticeable time shift or whatever that caused that rapid aging from before?

Whatever. Until Gadget said something, she really didn't have any choice but to play along. At the very least, she could maybe protect this Zoey from getting tangled in the mess she was currently in once she got back.

"Uhm--Aspen," Zoey blurted. An art display featuring gemstones caught her eye as she followed. "Garnet. Aspen Garnet."

"Well, Aspen Garnet, I think we'll be good friends," Other Zoey stopped in front of the art room. "This school's art rooms are kinda funny. Instead of walls on the side facing into the hall, it's a whole garage. Never seen anyone open it though. But here we are!" She pointed a thumb back down the hall. "I learned how to carve stuff in the woodshop back over there by the way."

"Alright, Zoey," Gadget's voice returned. "Sorry for leaving you there. I was surprised when things didn't reset like usual. You left your knife thing on the porch by the way."

Other Zoey looked around. "What's that sound?"

Oh. Oh boy.

The tip of the sky shard suddenly punctured the air before sliding downward in a smooth, singular motion. Gadget peeked out, looking between Zoey and Other Zoey.

Other Zoey let go of Zoey's hand. "Woah."

"Could've waited a little longer," Zoey mouthed beside her.

"Well, uh, hi there!" Gadget waved. "I'm... Aspen's... cousin! Picking her up. She's feeling terrible right now. Right?"

Zoey snorted at Gadget's attempt to disguise the situation.

"See? Not feeling good. Just a big ol' headache and stuff. C'mooooon, get in here. I already had to yoink the location of the old portal waaaaaay out of the way for safety reasons. Hurry up before other people see. Besides this Zoey, I mean."

Zoey sucked in a breath. "Alright, yeah, let's go. I think at this point we don't need to hide anything from this world's Zoey by the way. Opening the portal right in front of her wasn't the smartest move."

Gadget shrugged. "The more the merrier? By the way, this whole reality split off from the one you entered. The original one kinda slingshot itself away the moment you walked in." She lifted her bangs, pointing at her forehead. "Smacked me right on the noggin, too. If I was ponymoding it when that happened then that might've even cracked my horn!"

Zoey glanced at Other Zoey before stepping through. "Long story."

"Pony?" Other Zoey's eyes remained glued to Gadget.

"Right okay yeah gotta go see ya!" Zoey pushed Gadget along as she walked deeper into the void. She grasped the portal's edges and slammed them back down to nothing more than the usual glowing dot. "Gadget, did something happen while I was gone? You're acting really different from how you were when I entered just a few minutes ago."

Gadget avoided her glare. "Truth be told, I wasn't really paying attention at first. Yeah, the old untouched universe split off and bonked me, but even after that and moving the old portal to a different location and closing it, all I could do was think."

"Yeah?"

"Y'know how I said earlier that maybe this whole void plane thing was made just for us?"

"...Yes? Go on,"

"What if, it really is exactly that? A construct that exists entirely for us to exist in? Life in a box, in a way. If that's the case, then doesn't that mean that it's fine for us to share this place? We could even have, like a council of Zoeys! Potato Zoey back there might be an interesting candidate, for example. I looked at the calendars hanging around once I realized that the loop wasn't going to happen while you were in there. Says May twenty-fourteen on it. What was the date for you out there? Your original world or the one you're living in right now are both fine."

2014.

Zoey blinked. That was a decade ago. 'Potato Zoey' should've been, what, twenty now? Definitely good in that case that she didn't immediately catch up on a decade's worth of aging in that case when she touched her.

"September twenty-twenty-four."

Gadget whistled. "Yeah, that's a big gap. I knew something was up with that universe when I came across it. Potato Zoey's probably the original."

"What."

"Listen," Gadget gripped Zoey by the shoulders. "This goes back to what I asked you earlier about the whole 'remembering your past' stuff. I can only remember back to a certain point in time, and that time happened to start eight years ago if we're going by the date you just mentioned."

She gestured to the countless dots of light floating around them. "See all of those? Every single one, I can guarantee will never feature a year before the one Potato Zoey lives in. For whatever reason, history itself for us specifically seems to begin at that moment. Everything started from when that version of us carves a hot dog out of a potato and eats it."

"...What."

Gadget let go of Zoey, her breaths still heavy. "I... I promise I'm not going crazy. Or maybe I am. But like, this is the most excited I've been about anything since I climbed into that rocket and never came back. Something--maybe even someone--marked the beginning of us, and we've been going ever since."

Zoey cocked her head, inspecting the sliver of a crack floating mid-air from every angle. This wasn't supposed to happen! Maybe she could ask Sammy about it. He's smart.

She traced a finger along the crack, feeling her nail catch on an edge. Whether it was an accident or out of curiosity, the next thing she knew, the crack had grown...

...And a small chip of what was supposed to be the air in front of her lay in her hands.

Author's Note

Hoo boy was this a doozy to write. I actually have a previous version of this chapter that was written up to 500 words that would've rehashed the experimental magic system, but I didn't really like the direction it was going and restarted. Somehow, it veered into some intense existential dread surrounding the notion that Zoey in every incarnation exists for and as part of my fics, and beyond that, does not exist in any meaningful capacity.

To put it simply, I accidentally traumatized a fictional child who died in a scrapped fic from 2017.

Whoops.

(Definitely some good character practice here, though, trying to write three different versions of the same character each with their own variations in voice.)

Post-writing analysis

• "Potato Zoey" and the universe she originates from is the OG Wielder of the Orb scripts I wrote back in early 2014 while I myself was in middle school. She was the token "girl character" that wasn't really treated or meant to be taken seriously. But it was from her that every incarnation of Zoey that's existed within my writing originates from. Thus, Potato Zoey marks, in a sense, the beginning of time for all versions of Zoey that I write (if you're going by real-life dates). Obviously, exceptions apply such as if I were to explicitly set some version of her in a different era, but given how so far I've mentally kept track of Zoey's existence by real-life dates, and usually set every fic involving her in a pretty contemporary period of time, I'd might as well keep going.
• The mechanic of rapidly-aging other versions of herself upon contact is one that existed for a single interaction in my 2023 rough draft of Fractures, where Zoey once again met Potato Zoey, albeit at the opening scenes of Wielder of the Orb rather than right at the end of the scripts. I'll get around to posting the rest of that someday, but I don't plan on bringing that mechanic back.
• I debated having Gadget growing even more neurotic, possibly to the point where she becomes aware of me, the author of the story. Decided to instead suggest that she's got an idea of the notion that she and every other version of her are merely characters in a story though. I didn't want things to get too meta.
• At some point I was gonna have Zoey tell Gadget who her mom is and what she does (as per a previous chapter) but I forgor 💀
• I legit was cross-referencing both Lab Horse and Wielder of the Orb more and more the longer the chapter got. Any more and there's a good chance I would've straight-up started writing a brand new extension to Lab Horse, probably. Idk.
• Holy crap this is like, a critical mass of serious Zoeyposting. I know I wrote a chapter before where infinite Zoeys gathered to prank Twilight or whatnot, but writing something serious involving not just one, but three Zoeys across wildly different eras in my writing career? Man.
• This chapter was meant to be posted on my birthday but it just kept getting longer lol.

Project Emphehom #11 & #12 can found here.